May 18 World Premiere at Carnegie Hall launches a busy season for 17-year-old composer Samuel Siskind

While most high-school juniors are looking ahead to beach vacations and college searches, 17-year-old Samuel Siskind is preparing for a busy summer filled with musical achievements. Some might call it his “moment.”

The LA-based composer and vocalist is preparing for the world premiere performance of his composition “Soaring Dreams” at Carnegie Hall on Saturday, May 18, performed by the GRAMMY Award-winning® National Children's Chorus (NCC). Over 500 of America’s finest young singers representing each of NCC’s eight chapter cities (New York, Boston, Washington D.C., Chicago, Austin, Dallas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco) present a captivating afternoon of music, mindfulness, and exhilaration celebrating youth and mental health. In addition to Siskind’s world premiere, the program includes works by Ola Gjeilo, Eric Whitacre, Gabriel Fauré, and W.A. Mozart, in a program titled “Radiant Harmony.”

Siskind composed “Soaring Dreams” in early 2021, at age 14, as Gen Z coped with the mental health impacts of the sudden pandemic lockdown. “I found writing the piece during isolation an exhilarating escape,” he says.

Three days after the premiere, Siskind will go into the studio to record his debut album, Amidst the Silence, for release later this summer in collaboration with Fourth Wall Ensemble, Grammy® nominated baritone Johnathan McCullough, and Christopher Allen, winner of the Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award. The album will feature “Release,” Siskind’s three-part choral cycle of “Soaring Dreams,” “Strident Downpour,” and “Out from the Deep,” which was a 2023 Morton Gould Young Composer Awards Finalist, plus “Tranquil Beauty,” an art song for baritone and piano, performed by McCullough and Allen, and “Evolution” performed by Siskind on the piano.

McCullough, who first met the young composer at the annual National Youth Opera Academy in Vail, Colorado, was immediately attracted to the project for how it frankly addresses mental health topics, which he found remarkably mature for a teenage composer. In 2021, McCullough received acclaim and awards for his cinematic production of David T. Little’s Soldier Songs produced by Opera Philadelphia, which was nominated by the Recording Academy for Best of Recording, an International Opera Award nomination, and won the Artistic Creation Prize at the inaugural Opera America Awards for Digital Excellence. Called “a pacesetter for cinematic opera” by the New York Times, the work assembles stories from multiple veterans, finding commonalities between them as they cope with the psychological impacts of war and other traumatic experiences.

“I think it’s important that the music we make spreads messages of what we are passionate about,” McCullough said. “Samuel had barely finished telling me about his proposal before I responded with an enthusiastic ‘Yes!’”

As if preparing for the August release of his first album isn’t enough, Siskind will also spend two July weeks in the prestigious Juilliard Summer Composition Program led by David Serkin-Ludwig and a faculty of world-renowned composers, including Eric Whitacre, John Corigliano, Reena Esmail, and others.

“I am so immensely looking forward to these next few months as I will have a chance to collaborate and learn from some of the most talented and gifted individuals whom I have looked up to as a source of inspiration for years,” Siskind said.

About the Artists

Since he was 11 years old, Samuel Siskind has been studying composition with Ian Krouse at UCLA. Now 17, the high school junior recently completed a composing fellowship with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he worked under the tutelage of composers Sarah Gibson and Andrew Norman. Several of his compositions were recorded by the LA Phil, including a live performance of his string quartet, “Out from the Deep.” Samuel’s choral piece, The Forest, was selected by the National Children’s Chorus to tour Asia in a series of concerts that culminated in an internationally televised performance at the DMZ in collaboration with musicians from North and South Korea. Samuel’s orchestral waltz, Rain, written when he was 12, was scored for ballet by renowned choreographer Alisher Khasanov and performed under the stars at the Yellowstone International Arts Festival 2020 by Nadia Khan of the Rome Opera Theater.

GRAMMY® nominated baritone and director Johnathan McCullough recently made his Canadian directing debut this season with the Atelier lyrique of Opéra de Montréal with a program entitled Emily centered around works written by Emily Dickinson, which he co-created with conductor and pianist Christopher Allen. The show was revived as part of the chamber series at Wolf Trap. Other recent appearances include singing the baritone soloist in Britten’s “War Requiem” at Walt Disney Concert Hall and recital with pianist Carol Wong as part of the Carnegie Hall Citywide Series, He has sung leading roles at Opera Philadelphia, Komische Oper Berlin, English National Opera, Opéra de Lausanne, Portland Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and many more. Johnathan was selected by Renée Fleming to participate in the Weill Institute Song Studio at Carnegie Hall where he has also performed in concert. Recent and upcoming singing engagements include appearances with Pittsburgh Opera and Lyric Opera of Kansas City as Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Opera Philadelphia as Ophémon in The Anonymous Lover, and Lyric Opera Kansas City as Mercutio in Roméo et Juliette.

Recipient of The Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award, Christopher Allen is featured in Opera News as “one of the fastest-rising podium stars in North America.” He has led acclaimed performances with the Atlanta Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Cincinnati Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Opéra de Montréal, English National Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Washington National Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Kansas City Symphony, Oregon Symphony, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Wolf Trap Opera (National Symphony Orchestra), Detroit Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Atlanta Opera, OSESP, Korean Symphony Orchestra, Daegu Opera House in South Korea and China National Opera Orchestra and Chorus. Allen has worked with young artists at Opéra de Montréal’s Atelier lyrique, Los Angeles Opera, Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago, Aspen Music Festival and School, New England Conservatory, and A.J. Fletcher Institute at University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Allen has been heard on NPR speaking about the importance of the arts in American society. Most recently, as a pianist, he was heard in Opera Philadelphia’s film of La voix humaine starring Patricia Racette, and in Emily, a production he created with Johnathan McCullough that premiered at Opéra de Montréal.

Fourth Wall Ensemble is quickly emerging as New York’s premiere vocal ensemble. Its first season includes appearances at Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall at Lincoln Center, Death of Classical, a concert series at the legendary Power Station Studios, a debut album with GRAMMY Award- Winning Trio Time for Three and 5-time EMMY Award winner and composer of House of Cards, Jeff Beal, and the release of “Fourth Wall: Live from Power Station” featuring instrumentalist Stuart Bogie. The ensemble is led by award-winning conductor and creative director, Christopher Allen and Executive Director and producer Johnathan McCullough.

The GRAMMY® Award-winning National Children’s Chorus, under the leadership of Artistic Director Luke McEndarfer and Associate Artistic Director Dr. Pamela Blackstone, has quickly become one of the world’s leading children’s choirs. Among the most exciting and fastest-growing music institutions for youth in the nation, the chorus provides its unparalleled training to more than 1,000 students, comprising 32 choirs based in the chapter cities of Los Angeles, New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Austin, Dallas, Boston, and Chicago.